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We interrupt our regular Rob Ford programming to bring you this important message about life before death.

It’s about the Canada Pension Plan. Still with me?

Never mind our mayor’s thoughts on crack cocaine and oral sex. Pensions and retirement income may seem less titillating, but are far more enduring.

While the world was watching city council in full view Friday, Canada’s premiers were haggling about pension reform behind closed doors. The CPP is a mega-billion-dollar challenge that will determine Canadians’ retirement incomes for decades, long after Ford is a footnote to history and comedy.

It’s now or never: Since 2009 our politicians have been talking up — and then shooting down — CPP reform. Now, after going in circles for nearly four years, there is momentum for change — but also inertia from a few outliers who need to give their head a shake or be shaken up by voters.

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To her credit, Premier Kathleen Wynne has tried to put CPP reform back on the agenda with her fellow premiers. Chairing their latest meeting Friday in Toronto, she tried to rally them in a show of solidarity ahead of a showdown between the provinces and federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty coming next month.

For most of the time he’s been on the job, Flaherty has been boldly dragging his feet. Claiming that a fragile economic recovery precludes any forward planning, he has placed CPP reform on the backburner.

A few provinces — notably New Brunswick, Quebec, Saskatchewan and Alberta — have been infected by Flaherty’s passivity. Now, with gentle prodding and persistence, the laggards are coming round.

“I wish that we could actually find a way to work together on this,” Wynne said in an interview. “I don’t think this is a particularly partisan issue. I don’t think this is ideological.”

Still, it was slow going. Despite her good working relationship with Alison Redford, the Alberta premier said she wants more study. That’s better than the previous red light, but a flashing amber at best.

Redford insisted later she’s not an outlier (delayer may be more accurate). Claiming “the work hasn’t been done,” she called for “real technical analysis” before her province makes up its mind. Ignoring the past four years of painstaking discussion, Redford concluded, with breathtaking obliviousness: “We don’t always have to come to a decision on two days’ notice.”

Saskatchewan’s Brad Wall, who leads with commendable clarity and alacrity on issues ranging from Senate abolition to potash protectionism, has also been curiously reticent on CPP reform.

“We’re ‘No for now,’ that’s correct,” he said in an interview before the meeting. “Now’s not the time for contribution changes or increases.”

But why not lay the groundwork for when the time is right? Even if Ottawa and the provinces could agree on CPP changes (requiring Parliament plus seven provinces with two-thirds of the population) by next year, there would still be a statutory two-year notice period and a three-year phase-in. From gestation to negotiation, implementation and transition, it would be 2019 before CPP premium increases take full effect — minimizing any impacts that some premiers and critics fuss about.

“I don’t disagree with you — I think the work can happen,” Wall replied when I put it to him. “I think everything can be on the table when the time is right. I do.”

Wynne said after their meeting that Saskatchewan and other provinces were coming around to a common front, however fragile.

“Brad Wall, like all of the premiers, is willing to have the finance ministers develop some options . . . and that to me is a success — that we have been able to hold together the premiers,” she mused after the day-long meeting at the King Edward Hotel.

“There’s still unanimity that we should move ahead. . . I thought maybe we’d be on our own. But we’re not.”

Meeting earlier this month, all provincial finance ministers agreed in principle to boost the CPP. They dropped the word “modest” from previous terminology, which suggests a more substantive increase.

Currently, the maximum CPP payout is a paltry $12,500. That’s because only income up to $50,000 counts. If you’re an upper-middle-class worker earning, say $75,000 a year, then the CPP comes up short.

Now, Wynne wants Ottawa to heed the premiers’ unified voice. If not, she will move ahead with her own Ontario Pension Plan, which she insists is “not a tactic” to apply pressure.

Either way, Wynne argues that a fragile economy cannot be an excuse for Flaherty to delay pension reform for all time: “He knows perfectly well that it is an issue, that people across the country are worried about this.”

But it does take leadership, and the long view. Flaherty may believe Canadians cannot walk and chew gum at the same time, or start planning now for the day when the economy is ready to support long term pension reform.

Over time, however, most voters are sophisticated enough to know the difference between an excuse and an explanation. Just ask Rob Ford.

After all, he deserves a decent pension, too. We now resume regular programming.

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